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Christmas Mass Schedule

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day Mass Schedule:

Dec. 24, 4:00 pm St. Mary’s & St. Aloysius

Dec. 24, 6:00 pm Holy Redeemer & St. John’s

Dec. 24, 10:00 pm St. Mary’s

Dec. 25, 8:30 am St. Aloysius

Dec. 25, 10:30 am St. Mary’s

Welcome to the Heart of Jesus Area Faith Community consisting of four parish communities: Holy Redeemer Parish in Renville, St. Aloysius Parish in Olivia, St. Mary’s Parish in Bird Island, and St. John’s Parish in Hector, MN. Our four parishes are in the heart of the Diocese of New Ulm. As pastor of the four parishes I want to welcome you to our website and to our parishes. I invite you to come to one of our weekend Masses to worship with us. If you are new to the area and would like more information about any of our parishes, please contact one of our parishes.

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Word On Fire

The writings of J.R.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton are often read as nostalgic celebrations of a quiet domesticity that existed before the rise of modernity and capitalism. However, I’m convinced that to see things this way is almost entirely to miss the point. For the ultimate purpose of their work is not to celebrate domesticity but rather to challenge it.

Perhaps you’ve heard the extraordinary story of John Chau, the young Christian missionary who tried to bring the Gospel to North Sentinel Island, one of the most remote and isolated communities in the world, and who, for his trouble, was killed before he even got past the beach. His endeavor has inspired a whole range of reactions—outrage, puzzlement, sympathy, deep admiration—and has stirred up in many people, both religious and secular, questions about the missionary nature of Christianity.

USCCB News

WASHINGTON--On December 8, seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin died in the custody of United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP). She and her father had been apprehended the evening of December 6 in a remote stretch of the U.S./Mexico border in Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Most Reverend Joe S. Vásquez, Bishop of Austin, and Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration, along with Most Reverend Mark J. Seitz, Bishop of El Paso and Most Reverend Gerald Kicanas, Administrator of the Diocese of Las Cruces, issued the following statement:

“We are extremely distressed at the news of seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin’s death shortly after crossing the U.S./Mexico border with her father and turning themselves into CBP in search of asylum in the United States. Our prayers and heart-felt condolences go out to Jakelin’s family. The death of a child is always a moment of great sadness, a jarring disruption of the natural order of life. From this tragedy, we must remember this profound human consequence of our failed immigration policies, including also that restrictions on the flow of asylum seekers at the border can push more families to seek entrance between ports of entry which place them at greater risk. Jakelin’s death is a tragic reminder of the desperate situation that many fleeing violence, persecution, and poverty face - both in their home countries and now at our border.

WASHINGTON—Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), recently defended current NIH research that uses the body parts of babies destroyed by elective abortions and said that fetal tissue research “will continue to be the mainstay.”

Greg Schleppenbach, Associate Director of the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, responds with the following statement:

WASHINGTON—On January 14, 2019, thousands of Catholics across the country will join in prayer for “9 Days for Life.” The prayer campaign, sponsored by the Committee on Pro Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, leads up to the annual Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. The novena and day of prayer are a time of recollection and reparation in observation of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade—the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal throughout the United States.

The overarching intention of the novena is that all human life will be respected. Each day of the “9 Days for Life” novena highlights a related topic and provides a reflection, educational information, and suggested daily actions.